Why the Father of Modern Advertising Says Humility Matters Most
Claude C. Hopkins is known for having invented the idea of coupons. He pioneered the use of free samples. He made Bissel, Schlitz beer, Van Camp baked beans, and others top brands of their time. Born in 1866, his work revolutionized the effectiveness of selling through advertising.
With the advent of the internet, many of his ideas are more important than ever.
If you are successful at making money on the internet, you are probably benefiting from his ideas. If you would like to make money on the internet, then you would do well to read his book “My Life In Advertising.”
One of his most profound ideas comes near the beginning of the book. He talks a lot about growing up in poverty, earning maybe $1 a day, not even able to afford 3 square meals. He knew what it was like to live with ‘the common people.’ He knew ‘ordinary humanity,’ and it defined his attitude towards advertising.
“I am trying to show by this how ordinary, how plebeian, good advertising is. And how ordinary humanity counts. Most new men in this field rely on language, on the ability to express an idea. Others count on queer things which attract attention. All of them are trying to flatter themselves, and that always arouses resentment. The real people in advertising who I know are all humble people. They came from humble people, and they know them.”
Let me drill that in: Real advertising people are humble. They are not arrogant. They don’t put themselves on a pedestal. They understand what it means to be human.
Which brings me to something that has been bothering me tremendously.
I used to have a lot of respect for internet marketing guru James Brausch. But that was until he publicly called most internet marketers ‘liars and hypocrites.’ Now, it wasn’t the name calling that offended me. It was that his reasoning was so flawed, so arrogant, so self-indulgent that it was repulsive. In short, there was no humility in it. It took Claude Hopkins to point this out to me.
The surprising thing was that, in spite of his arrogance, Brausch’s main point was very similar to Claude Hopkins idea about humility. Brausch said that the “root drivers of human activity are all the same.” And yes, he is right. Human beings are all similar on a very deep, very meaningful level.
But Brausch took that idea as permission to slander people who are marketing to only a subset of humanity…and not all of it! Why? His twisted reasoning concludes that if we are all the same, then we all have the same problems, and why would you waste time going after a few people…when you can go after everyone?
The answer is easy. People with real humility understand that each and everyone one of us live in a difficult, complex situation. People who truly want to improve the world never try to do it all at once.
Mother Teresa spent much of her life helping just one person at a time.
Wangari Maathai won the Nobel peace prize because she focused on one very specific thing — and that resulted in 30 million trees being planted in her country, Kenya.
Each of them focused on specific problems…and the result was enormous success.
That is what niche marketing is all about…Finding a group of people who have a problem, and giving them a solution. Yes, all of us are human, and that humanity gives us problems sometimes. But our problems are our own as much as they are everybody elses.
The people of Kenya’s problems are different than the problems faced by Africans as a whole. The people of Africa’s problems are different than the problems each of us must face, as individuals.
Each of us are unique in the way we face the world. To truly make an impact on the world, whether through advertising or activism, we must submit ourselves to the complexities of the world.
Claude Hopkins wrote that “We must never judge humanity by ourselves.”
We must submit our selves, and our ideas, to humanity.